Google will soon be more selective about which apps in the Play Store can see all the other apps you have installed (via XDA Developers). As Ars Technica point out that your list of installed programs, no matter how innocent it may seem, can communicate personal characteristics such as dating preferences and political commitments to developers. As of May 5, 2021, developers should be giving a very good reason why Google should give you access to such information.
Android 11 apps that are currently requesting “QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES” permission can see the full list of apps that you have stored on your device. However, Google recently updated its development program policies and now considers the information to be ‘personal and sensitive user data’, which limits which applications it may use.
Once the change takes effect in May, apps can only use the permission if their “core user functionality or goal requires a wide visibility of apps installed on the user’s device.” Examples of programs that will be allowed to use this permission are file managers, browsers, and antivirus programs that require the data “for awareness or interoperability purposes.” Banking applications, digital wallet programs, and any other program that involves ‘financial transaction features’ get ‘pass’ for security-based purposes. ‘
Apps that do not have a fair use case because the permission risk is removed from the Google Play Store. All developers who want to keep the permission in their programs must fill out a declaration form that can justify their use of it.
If you’m worried developers could do it still abuse the permission, Google’s documentation clearly states that it will be difficult to do offensive apps, whether it’s new in the Play Store or just updates to existing apps. Google may suspend applications and possibly terminate developer accounts.